


day thirty seven

by fannishtendencies



Series: Gems!Sonic AU [2]
Category: Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Everyone Is Gay, He Doesn't Know How to Deal With Feelings, M/M, Multi, Pining, Sonic needs a hug, a slightly not normal day, brief mention of past sonamy, companion fic to Nightmares, depressed!sonic, fusionfic, gems!sonic au, i love these characters (stabs), not edited im tired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:46:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25960000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannishtendencies/pseuds/fannishtendencies
Summary: It's evening now. It's evening now, and Sonic is tired, and alone.It hadn't always been like this. Before, he'd sing, or crack jokes, and his merry crew around him would react with groans of mock disgust, or hums to the basic tune. Maybe even sing along with him.But thirty-seven days ago, something changed.And Sonic hasn't been the same since.Or: Sonic POV of the aftermath of Knuckles leaving. Companion fic to "Nightmares". Angst with a vague ending: you know what happens if you've read Nightmares.
Relationships: Amy Rose/Blaze the Cat, Knuckles the Echidna/Sonic the Hedgehog, Past amy/Sonic, Tails & Sonic
Series: Gems!Sonic AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1884202
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	day thirty seven

**Author's Note:**

> I'M NOT DEAD GUYS I SWEAR
> 
> POKEGIRLS OF JUSTICE JUST TOOK OVER MY LIFE FOR A BIT
> 
> ANYWAYS HERE HAVE SOME UNEDITED SONKNUX PINING

_ How many days has it been? _ a voice asks inside Sonic's mind. The voice itself is unfamiliar, but the question stings. 

_ Thirty seven days,  _ he replies.  _ Thirty seven days since he left. _

The memory burns in him, and if Sonic could yank out his heart and skip on the emotions, he would. Day thirty seven begins.

Sonic starts the day early, watching the sky turn from deep blue to crimson to yellow, before settling on a azure slightly lighter than him. He takes a deep breath, warms up, and then sets off on the first run of the day.

The wind rushes around him as he darts through Green Hills like a blue bullet, everything else fading away to a blur. It is only him, and him only. He reaches the top of a peak, and a smile spreads on his face. The sun greets him warmly, but there is no warmth in the air, not yet.

The smile slides right off as he remembers a fracture of his old routine, back when  _ he  _ was still here. The Ruby would notice the chill run down his spine, and, always first to take initiative, leaned an arm on Sonic's shoulder. Sometimes, he'd make a comment under his breath about it; a "It's not that cold" that got swept away by the wind. And he liked it that way.

He likes - liked - a lot of things about his old routine.

But that Ruby is gone, and so is that old Lazuli. Sonic is moving on, whether he likes it or not.

~°~°~°~°~°~

It's morning proper now, the sun's rays fully extending across the hills, shining on anyone or anything outside. Tails needs Sonic to test the Tornado again.

"Flying Hedgehog to Grounded Fox. Come in, Grounded Fox."

"Sonic, I told you we don't need to use codenames."

Sonic grinned. "But Taaaaails. It's more fun that way."

Tails sighed into the mic, but Sonic also heard a small giggle, and that gave him the go ahead to keep the jokey attitude. 

"Come on, then. Are you collecting the data yet? Are you? Are you?"

"Yes, but I need you to do a few things for me."

His eyes adjusted, now looking outside the plane steadily. "Alright. Whaddaya need?"

"Do a barrel roll." Tails said it in a flat monotone, so how was the Lazuli supposed to  _ not  _ crack up?

Sonic performed it with ease, as well as the figure eight, the hammerhead, and the classic loop-de-loop. 

After the fits of laughter died down, and Sonic was rounding back, he asked a question. "Why did you ask me to do all that stuff? You never needed me to do it before."

Tails hesitated; Sonic could tell by the way he was breathing into the mic, calculating his words. "Because… I wanted to hear you laugh again. You haven't since - "

And suddenly, the mood turns dour.

"Oh." Sonic doesn't say anything else. He lands the plane and speeds off before Tails can confront him. 

~°~°~°~°~°~

It's afternoon now, how time flies. The prior waves of melancholy are gone, replaced with a cheery smile and a happy disposition. Sonic is off to see Amy now. 

"Amy! Hey - "

But when he arrives in (x), Amy is… preoccupied, with a certain eggheaded individual.

"Oh! Sonic!" Amy pauses whacking a robot and waves, then hits another one into the horizon. "Not that I don't wanna see you, but can this wait?"  _ Whack.  _ "I'm - "  _ Thump.  _ " - a little - "  _ Scrrrrrrech.  _ " - busy, here!"

"Here, let me give a hand -" But Amy raises a hand to stop him, grunting as she pushes against Eggman's biggest mechanical monstrosity yet. 

"I'm fine! Don't worry!" She keeps looking behind her,  _ what is she  _ -

And then Sonic sees it. A lavender Moonstone Gem calls out cheerfully, "You can do it, Amy!" Blaze the Cat is here, and a piece in the puzzle clicks.

Sonic watches on, trying to hide behind some robot rubble so Blaze doesn't notice him.  _ I bet Amy challenged Eggman to impress her. An impulsive decision.  _ He grins to himself.  _ Now I remember why I dated her.  _

  
  


But as much as Sonic believes Amy could fuck Eggman up, it is pretty clear by her desperate hit and misses that she is tired. He's conflicted for a moment between her temporary anger at rescuing her, and any permanent damage that Eggman could do to her, and, well, there was quite a difference.

Rolling into a ball, Sonic charged up some speed, then skidding around Eggman's huge robot, crashing right through the front of it with relative ease. Explosion, explosion, Eggman swears revenge, and the battle is done.

Or so it should've been. But it takes more then one hit to get  _ this _ robot down. 

At the end of it all, Sonic is too exhausted to argue with his ex-girlfriend, or her prospective girlfriend. He leaves without another word, the non-action getting easier to default to.

~°~°~°~°~°~

It's evening now. It's evening now, and Sonic is tired, and alone.

It hadn't always been like this. Before, he'd sing, or crack jokes, and his merry crew around him would react with groans of mock disgust, or hums to the basic tune. Maybe even sing along with him.

But thirty-seven days ago, something changed. 

And Sonic hasn't been the same since.

He'd love to just pop right back, to forget it ever happened. To move on from whatever he and the echidna had had, or would've had. 

But he was stuck at this rock bottom, and there wasn't any way out.

  
  


~°~°~°~°~°~

And, at the end of the day, this is what finally breaks Sonic the Hedgehog, runaway Lapis Lazuli.

When he closes his eyes at the end of the day, and enters the dormant state, his mind fills with what ifs and could've beens. He dreams, vividly, of the Ruby who left long ago, dreams of all the things he'd do if he came back.

At first, these dreams weren't too friendly. Sonic would imagine getting a type of revenge, like humiliation, or maybe the cold shoulder. Sometimes he'd even come up with a spar, though they were never to the death.  _ Never ever ever _ .

But as time went on, his subconscious found his weak point. And the tone of his night terrors shifted.

He'd save Knuckles from a frightful enemy, patch up his wounds, snark about caution while everyone rolled their eyes. A voice would maybe pip up, "What do you know about caution?", and they'd have a laugh. Then, his friends would leave, and it'd be just him and Knuckles.

Sonic would always get caught staring. A glare would be sent his way by those lavender eyes, maybe a "And what are you looking at?" in that tone he secretly found adorable.

And the Lazuli would slyly respond, "Nothing," and he'd take Knuckles by the hands. "Let's go for a run."

When they stopped on the peak, Sonic would take Knuckles' hands again, a soft smile on his face. A blush would spread across the echidna's face; he'd glance downward in a not-so-subtle fashion, then back up at Sonic, asking a question with no words.

"I hope it's okay." He knows all the right words, of course. This is a script he's gone over multiple times, and always perfected it everytime.

"No - no, it's fine." The Ruby's head swivels, his grip tightening. But when Sonic gently cups his chin, and brings their lips together, he doesn't oppose, or resist.

Sonic never figures out what the dream Knuckles tastes like, because it escapes his grasp after that. And then he's sitting in bed, tears rolling down his cheeks, and he starts counting.

He counts until he reaches the day. If he doesn't stop crying then, until he reaches the hour. The minute. The second.

He drifts back to a silence and falls dormant again. The end of day thirty seven.

~°~°~°~°~°~

And so, on day eighty four, when something interrupts Sonic's new routine, he is annoyed.

He gets up at four a.m., careful not to wake Tails, stepping around the dozen hundred bubbled Gems that sleep in their living room. The crystalline shards send his glare reflecting back at him from a thousand different directions.

He gets to the door, hand curling around the knob, and takes a deep breath, trying to steady his heartbeat. He twists it, and glances outside.

A red figure stands outside, a Ruby sparkling on his chest. He looks like he knows its too early, but -

And then Sonic's heart leaps into his chest. He slams the door, pushes his back to it, and starts panting heavily, like after a long run or battle.

_ Knuckles. _

After all this time.

A flurry of emotions swirl in him; anger at the Ruby for leaving, remorse at not going with him, and, surprising himself, joy. A fierce joy that overtakes the negatives and forces his hand to open the door again, facing Knuckles again.

The echidna's face lights up involuntarily, a quirky smile on his lips, and Sonic can't hold back. He tackles Knuckles to the ground, sobbing loudly into the night, feeling him, holding him. It unleashes a beast in him, no longer chained. 

And what's worse, or better, maybe, is that Knuckles hugs him back.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos appreciated k thx bye


End file.
